


Fur Under Skin

by malachiical



Category: Original Work
Genre: Fantasy, First Time, Getting Together, Holding Hands, Other, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-24 03:47:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17697062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malachiical/pseuds/malachiical
Summary: When Peggy first saw the wolf, she thought it might turn out to be her familiar spirit. It turns out they might be something even better.





	Fur Under Skin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lunarium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunarium/gifts).



When Peggy first looked up to see the wolf, she had a wild thought that her familiar spirit had come to find her—and at the most inconvenient possible time.

It was early morning, early enough that the dew was still on the ground, a perfect time for weeding, and she’d been on her knees in the rich soil for nearly half an hour. That wasn’t the problem; she knew well by now that familiar spirits often came to witches when they were hard at work, in their homes or outside, and she was hardly ashamed of wearing trousers or getting her hands dirty. But Aunt Lisbet had left just the morning before, and would be gone near a week, and while Peggy had listened and studied and practiced everything that Aunt Lisbet had deemed her ready to practice with, she wasn’t a real witch yet, not at all.

The wolf lay on the grass just watching her, and for a moment she almost panicked, straightening up and calling softly, “Well met,” before she noticed the wolf’s flattened ears and quick panting breaths.

She stood quickly, more alarmed than before but in quite a different way, and spotted the wolf’s fur all matted with blood, and no tail at all, just as it opened its mouth and spoke:

“Don’t go. Witch girl? Need help.”

Its voice was labored in a different way than its breathing, short words purposefully said to try to escape the awkwardness of trying to speak with a muzzle. Its tail—hadn’t been cut off, no, it was its leg that was wounded, and Peggy realized all at once what she was really looking at.

This was a werewolf.

“What are you doing? Are you being hunted?” She was almost ashamed that her instinctive response was to look around, to strain her ears, to try to figure out if the werewolf had been followed. More concerned now with being seen “consorting” than with this stranger’s safety. But this wasn’t her responsibility—wasn’t anything she knew how to deal with—witches took care of humans, and animals, and even dealt with the kindly folk, but not _werewolves._

“Lost them… I think.”

The consonants were soft and slow, almost not there, and Peggy shook her head. “Why won’t you change back?” It seemed to her like it would make things much simpler.

The wolf just whined, in response, and it occurred to her that it might be painful to try to change shape with an injury like that, if it was a bad one. And that, quite possibly, changing into a werewolf wouldn’t bring clothes along with you, either, so being naked and bloody might make people ask more questions, especially if there had just been a wolf with an injured leg about.

She fancied she could hear voices, in the distance, and she didn’t want to wait around to see if she was right or wrong. “Come inside, then,” she said hurriedly. “If you can still walk.”

Slowly, carefully, the werewolf got to its feet, and followed Peggy inside.

Once Peggy had closed and locked the door behind her, she turned to the wolf, and in the most brisk, no-nonsense, Aunt Lisbet tone she could muster, she said, “Lie down. Let me take a look at it.”

It laid again, like it had before, then flopped carefully onto one side, so that its injured leg was exposed. Peggy checked the wound carefully, glad that she had some veterinary experience already, so that a leg covered in fur wasn’t that much of a hardship, careful not to aggravate it too badly. If nothing else, she didn’t want the werewolf snapping at her.

“Shot,” it explained instead. “Grazed… Mostly.”

“Stop trying to talk,” she said distractedly. “It sounds horrible.”

A strange sound came from the werewolf; she thought that it might be a laugh. Peggy frowned.

“Well, it’s not as bad as it looks. You’re lucky you’re not bleeding any worse than you are, though.” She sat back, blowing her bangs out of her eyes. “I don’t think it’s bad enough to need stitches. I’ll make you a poultice. And get you a blanket,” she added. “Don’t bleed on it!”

She avoided looking at the werewolf; somehow that canine face looked amused, and she hated being the butt of a joke. She was almost tempted to say she’d let them be naked and embarrassed if they were going to laugh at her, but quite frankly she didn’t want to risk being more embarrassed than they were. Who knew if werewolves had modesty!

Aunt Lisbet had a grand total of two sheets for her bed—one to use when the other was washing and drying, a luxury!—and Peggy went to the cabinet to fetch the spare, carrying it back into the sitting room and dropping it to the floor near the wolf. She turned away, both to head to the kitchen to start gathering herbs and to give her—rescue? guest?—a bit of privacy.

She tried to ignore the noises, what she could only assume were the sounds of shape-changing, from the sitting room; they didn’t sound painful, exactly, but something about them made her skin want to just crawl away completely. One or two yelps told her that she might have been right on the money about doing something like that while wounded being painful. That or the change itself really didn’t feel good.

She mixed the poultice, studiously not poking her head in to check, not sure if she wanted to catch a glimpse of the transformation in progress or not. (She’d always been curious. That’s why she was in training to be a witch.) She was so studious, in fact, that she didn’t hear anyone walking up until a voice from the doorway made her jump.

“Thank you.”

She spun around, hand pressed to her heart—a gesture from her mother, and she felt decades older, suddenly—and snapped, “Don’t sneak up on me!”

“I wasn’t trying to,” the werewolf said, amused, and for a moment Peggy thought she might have made a very big mistake.

She’d never actually seen one of the fair folk, but they looked almost exactly like what she would have imagined if asked to picture one of them. No, not one of the little people, the small household helpers. But they were slight, and had a sparkle to their brown eyes, and were almost impossible to age, their brown hair curled around their ears streaked smartly with gray, but with a youthful, heart-shaped face. Impossible to sex, too, given all of that, either quite a boyish woman or an incredibly pretty man.

The only things that threw any of it off even slightly were the way their eyebrows met in the middle, sparsely, at the bridge of their nose, and the way the blanket draped over them just utterly subsumed them, covered them completely shapelessly, making their obviously tiny form seem even tinier. (They were shorter than Peggy, and Peggy was not a very tall woman.)

“You _are_ a werewolf, aren’t you?” she asked warily, and they showed their fangs in a grin that made her feel slightly weak in the knees—though not from fear.

“I’m not a church grim,” was their answer, and she re-gathered her glare from somewhere, and turned back around. She didn’t know why she was being so stern with this person; it was like without Aunt Lisbet around, she was trying to overcompensate.

“Wolf or grim, you shouldn’t be up on that leg. Don’t you have clothes somewhere? Anywhere?” She spared a moment to wave a hand, before getting back to mixing up the poultice, wanting it done extra quickly now. “Hidden away in the forest?”

“Why would I have clothes hidden away in the forest?”

“In case you have to change back,” she supplied patiently, “just like this? Out in the forest?”

“If I’m out in the forest, I shouldn’t change back. It’s safer out there as a wolf than a human.”

That made too much sense. “Well, once I apply this poultice, you can’t just stay here— without clothes.” She tripped over her words, fumbled a little, recovered. “And you can’t steal that blanket, either.”

This time, they sounded slightly offended. “I don’t steal.”

“And I suppose you only hunt wild game, and were shot by a hunter.” She turned to look at them again, holding the poultice, unsure if she meant to be accusing, or what she meant to be accusing.

She found them glaring at her—almost surprised to see it. “I suppose _you_ only paralyze cattle with your gaze, to feed upon them,” they countered, and for a moment she was speechless, angry. She had heard the stories about Aunt Lisbet before—her poison claws, her paralyzing glare, to prey on cattle and small children. All lies, of course, venomous, superstitious, dangerous lies.

“How dare you!”

“I dare as much as you!”

For a moment they were at an impasse, each glaring at the other. Peggy noticed that her guest’s face, formerly so pale, now had angry red high in their cheeks, and she felt a sudden twinge of guilt, glare faltering.

Whatever they saw in her face, they turned and limped back into the sitting room, and she wasn’t sure if they were silent because they were still angry. But she followed them out, and when they sat, in the chair this time, they held the blanket away from their injured leg, apparently trying not to get blood on it, as asked. Or at least not much blood. It felt as if they might have found an uneasy truce.

“I take livestock,” they admitted, as if their fight hadn’t happened. “A chicken or two, or a sheep. The occasional cow. I try not to take anyone’s livelihood… And I always come back to leave money.”

“You pay for them?” Peggy sat the paste on the end table, going to search the cupboard for a woolen cloth to wrap the wound with.

“I try to. Sometimes I go back to leave some money and there are dogs… Or a man is waiting with a gun.”

“At that point, I think they’ve waived their payment,” she said primly, coming back over with the cloth, and they laughed.

“How could they have known? But I agree. If for no other reason, trying again would be… unwise.”

“And you don’t eat humans?” Her question was careful, this time, and she followed it up hurriedly, “If you say you don’t, I’ll believe you. You’d know better than I would, after all.”

“I used to.” Their answer was just as careful. “When I first rose. There was a war… The men were already dying. Some already dead.”

Peggy resisted the urge to look up at them, instead keeping her calm, making sure to keep her calm, starting to clean the wound; it had nearly stopped bleeding, and it would have to be washed before applying the poultice. She stopped in surprise, though, seeing the state of it—fur inside the wound!—and when she spread it open a little, carefully, to make sure it wasn’t just debris caught inside, it looked to be _growing_ there.

She didn’t have room to look; they yanked their leg away. “Ow, careful!”

“You can’t jerk your leg like that just because it hurts.” The scold came automatically, before she relented. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s all right.” They relaxed, offering their leg back out to her, cautiously. “You don’t know much about werewolves, do you?”

“Only enough to recognize you.”

“Well, that’s one way to recognize us.” They fell silent, and when she glanced up, between the cleaning and starting to apply the paste, she found them watching her work, head cocked, and felt a flush rising to her face.

“What’s your name, witch?” they asked almost as soon as meeting her eyes, question abrupt but not unfriendly.

“Peggy,” she said. “Peggy Miller.”

“Vanja.” They smiled, slightly. “Just Vanja.”

“I’ve heard that’s a boy’s name,” Peggy said, incredibly casual. “Some places.”

Their smile widened. “You sound well-traveled,” they teased. “I’m not a boy.”

That didn’t make her heart pound any less, and she looked back down to her work, spreading the paste carefully onto the wound. “I suppose it’s a little less improper for a woman to be sitting here wearing a blanket, then…”

“I’m not a woman, either.”

Vanja might not have been one of the gentry, but they certainly seemed to take after them in more than a few ways! “I see,” she said, and left it at that.

“Trust a witch to understand,” Vanja said, voice almost fond. “Or at least accept.”

“I’m not a witch.” Peggy remembered to demur this time.

There was a moment’s silence before Vanja protested. “This is a witch’s cottage. I heard about it. That’s why I came here.”

Peggy had to smile at their almost patient, explaining, waiting-for-this-to-make-sense tone. “I’m sure you did hear about it, but I’m still not a witch. This is Aunt Lisbet’s cottage. I’m just her apprentice. I’m watching it for her.”

“Well.” For once, Vanja seemed stymied. “You make a good poultice, for an apprentice.”

“Don’t you start judging me,” she protested, not quite joking. “Not even nicely. It’s not your job.”

She made sure to wrap the poultice up tight, doing her best job of it. Vanja stood, and tested their leg again, and only winced a little, that time.

Then they looked back at Peggy. “May I help you weed?” they asked. “I know I interrupted you.”

“You’ve never had to weed a garden in your life, have you?” Peggy asked, amused. “Now’s not a good time for it. It’s best after rain, or when there’s still morning dew…”

“Well, is there anything I _can_ do? I could always pay you, of course. I will if you want me to. But I know you don’t give witches money for many things—and I assume the same holds true for their apprentices,” they added, seeing Peggy starting to open her mouth.

Peggy bit her lip. She _should_ just ask Vanja to leave… But she couldn’t quite remember why she’d been so put out and eager to get rid of them in the first place. It had been a strange mood, and it seemed, mostly, to have passed.

“Keep off that leg for now,” she decided, standing up. “Why don’t you talk to me while I do chores? You’re right that I don’t know much about werewolves. You can tell me things.”

“Wonderful,” Vanja said in agreement.

They sat there for a couple of hours while Peggy cleaned up, handing her things when she asked for them, occasionally, but mostly answering her questions. Where did they come from? East, Vanja said—east like Aunt Lisbet, but more of a slight south-east than her north-east. When did they change? Whenever they wanted to, Vanja said, but uncontrollably during the full moon and on the Winter solstice. How much meat did they need to eat? They didn’t eat meat, Vanja explained—well, not as a wolf—they drained their prey of blood, only stealing livestock away because it would cause a panic if such bloodless corpses were found. Did they really run with one leg held out behind them, pretending it was a tail, and did it look as stupid as it sounded? Shut up, Vanja said, and laughed again showing those beautiful teeth.

After about two hours, Vanja begged off, claiming exhaustion. “I’m not usually much of a daytime person,” they explained, “and I ran a lot today.”

Peggy found herself disappointed, but smiled, trying to hide it. “Well, I need to change your poultice before you go. I suppose you can take the cloth and the sheets… But make sure to bring them back!” If Vanja really did steal them, she figured, she had enough money to replace one set of sheets at least.

“Don’t worry,” Vanja said. “This was nice. I’d like to see you again.”

Peggy sent them away with the cloth, the sheets, the rest of the herbal mixture, and a light heart.

It stormed in the night, and was still raining hard the next morning. It rained, in fact, all day, and was still drizzling when the sun set, and Vanja didn’t come back. Peggy tried not to be too disappointed, going to bed and waking up early, with the cock’s crow, eating a breakfast of oatmeal, honey, and berries, and then heading out to finish up the weeding, though the sky still dripped slightly, like a faucet that didn’t quite shut off properly.

She’d barely settled down into the dirt when Vanja came up out of the nearby woods, clomping along in heavy boots, with the white blanket folded up under one arm and a basket in hand. In their other hand was a walking stick, and while they were still obviously favoring one leg, their smile was wide. They looked somehow even more fey than they had the day before, curly hair wild, smelling overpoweringly of wet dog when they drew near.

“I remembered what you said about weeding,” they greeted her. “I hoped you’d be out here. I brought you a dead bird.”

“Are you sure you aren’t a werecat?” she teased, amused by the way they’d put it. “You can take that inside—I’ve left the front door unlocked—forgive me if I don’t get up, I’m not as young as I used to be.”

“I hope your knees aren’t giving out yet, miss witch. You don’t look a day over twenty.”

“Flattery, miss—mister?—werewolf.”

“Either is fine.” Vanja went inside to put things away, and Peggy started weeding as she waited for them to get back. She was surprised by how happy and eager she felt; she barely knew Vanja, besides what Vanja themself had told her the other day. They were still mostly a stranger.

It was not long after Vanja went inside that hoofbeats sounded from up the trail, coming towards the cottage. She looked up, recognizing Joe Whittle on his horse. Joe was the son of Farmer Whittle, also named Joseph, and he and Peggy had always gotten along… all right, she supposed. He’d had a temper as a child that he had grown out of in his teenage years. She’d heard he was a good worker on the farm now, and had a fiancée.

“You’re here early, Joe,” she noted. “Is something the matter?” While the townspeople would mutter about witchcraft from time to time, and while they obviously knew that Aunt Lisbet was one, they never actually called her one, as if to name the thing was to lose plausible deniability, and they often came to her when they were worried or needed a more esoteric sort of help with something. Sometimes they came to her instead of just going to the doctor, even for smaller things.

As Vanja had implied before, they never paid with money. But they did many favors for the old woman, and she got many gifts.

Joe shifted on the horse, obviously uneasy and trying badly to hide it. “Hello, Peggy. No. Um. Not as such. Uh, is Aunt Lisbet still asleep?”

“No, she gets up even earlier than I do, most days,” Peggy said, taking pity on him and going back to weeding instead of watching him. It seemed to be unnerving him. “She’s not here. She’s gone to the market over in Hampton.”

“Oh.” That stymied him. “When’d she leave?”

“Three days ago. She’ll probably be another two or three days… What do you need her for?”

“Oh, no, I don’t, at least… Not if she’s been gone for days. Actually. Um. You’ve been living here… helping her out around the place and all… it’s been over a year now…”

“Coming up on two, actually.” Peggy sighed, getting to her feet, brushing her hands off on her trousers and looking up at Joe again. “What is all this about, Joe?”

“She’s probably been teaching you some things, right? You know, in, uh, in return for your help…” He looked like he wanted to squirm his way right off the horse, turning beet red, but then set his shoulders and his jaw. Did nothing for his complexion, though. “So I need to see your leg please,” he said, all in a rush.

Peggy was appalled, though her mind was working fast, catching up quickly even as her immediate reaction was to snap, “Joseph Whittle! How dare you!”

He looked miserable. “I’m sorry, Peggy, but I really do need to!”

“You absolutely do not! What’s this all about?” she demanded, though she had a feeling she already knew.

“You know how livestock disappear sometimes… Well, someone always comes back and leaves money, so we figured it was some weird thief or, like, someone’s hunting dog’s kept getting loose, so we figured, it’s mostly no harm. But there was a commotion the other night and Pa went out and there was a wolf taking off with a sheep… Big fella. He couldn’t get a shot in, but the wolf came back the next night, too, and Pa shot it in the leg…”

“And what on Earth’s that got to do with _my_ leg?”

“Well, you know what everyone thinks… I mean, we all talked about Aunt Lisbet when we were kids…” He was kind of defensive, now. “You did too, Peggy!”

Peggy scowled at him. “You came up here thinking Aunt Lisbet was out stealing your sheep, didn’t you? You ungrateful ass! She was out there just last month when _this horse_ took sick! She trades her chicken’s eggs for some of your family’s wool! Why would she kill your sheep?”

“Someone’s leaving money for the livestock, and it’s no ordinary wolf, I know that,” Joe said, stubborn.

“That wolf might not have anything to do with whoever’s paying for the livestock. Maybe someone’s dog gets out sometimes _and_ there was a wolf the other night. So one wild animal shows up and you think Aunt Lisbet has a familiar and it’s a… a wolf, of all things?”

Joe’s face fell. “Look, I can tell everyone she was already out of town, but you know how they talk sometimes. You don’t want them to start talking about you, do you?”

Peggy didn’t, particularly. She sighed, relenting a little. “All right, look. Where did your father shoot it?”

“Upper leg. About, uh.” He gestured, vaguely, at his thigh. “Here, the way he told it?”

“Well, I’m certainly not showing you _that._ But, here.” It felt incredibly silly, but she raised her hands and brought them down sharply against her own thighs, twice in short succession, smacking at herself in a way that would have hurt badly if she’d had the injury that Vanja did. She felt incredibly glad that they hadn’t come out of the house. “You know I’ve got no tolerance for pain. If I’d been shot, I’d be wincing, at least, right?”

“All right, all right.” Joe let go of the horse’s rein with one hand, holding it up in surrender. “I believe you. Look, I didn’t really think it was you, anyway...”

“But you _did_ think it might be Aunt Lisbet.” Peggy turned away from him, kneeling back down to get back to work at the garden, very clearly dismissing him. “You wasted enough time I could’ve spent weeding, Joe. Now go away, I’m going to be mad at you for a while.”

“All right,” she heard Joe say, and felt a _little_ bad for how meek he sounded. “Um. Have a good morning, Peggy.”

She waved him off, more of a ‘shoo’ gesture than a wave goodbye, and yanked a few weeds up. Eventually, his horse’s hoofbeats faded into the distance, but she didn’t look up until she heard footsteps coming up beside her.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t know he’d come,” Vanja apologized, but they were half-laughing. “Or that you knew him.”

“I grew up in that village, I’ve known his family my whole life.” Peggy looked up at them, unsure what to feel. Happy, still? Relieved? Annoyed? “You just about made things very awkward for Aunt Lisbet.”

“And for you.” They sobered some, crouching down beside her. “And here you are saving me twice.”

“You half saved yourself. It’s lucky you didn’t come out. You were taking a while in there before he got here…”

“I have very good hearing, and—usually—very good instincts. I was half out the door when I heard a horse, and I felt like you might not want to be seen entertaining a stranger. So I went back inside and closed the door.”

“And eavesdropped, I suppose,” Peggy said, but the inclination to be annoyed was fading.

“Well.” Vanja grinned. “I had to know when it was safe to come out.”

“It’s safe. And with your ears, it should be safe for you to help me weed, even if an army comes thundering up later.”

“If I hear an army, it will be from a mile away,” Vanja promised. “And I will warn you, I swear.”

As they weeded, they talked a bit more. This time around, Vanja asked Peggy questions, and she found herself telling them about her life. Not her life’s story, exactly, but a lot of things. How she, like everyone in the village, had always suspected Aunt Lisbet was a witch, but how that idea hadn’t frightened her since she was very small. How she just wasn’t interested in marrying any of the village boys, who she’d known all her life and therefore, she felt, knew far too well. How her father had appreciated her help at the shop, but had obviously been worried for her, and how he’d been relieved when she’d left, at twenty, to “help out Aunt Lisbet,” who was just a nice old woman after all and could probably use the help, getting on in years as she was!

“I think he was relieved, honestly,” she said, fingers sinking into the rich soil to get at the weeds’ roots. “That I’d be making something of myself. I got the feeling he knew what I was really doing.”

“It’s nice that he’s supportive,” Vanja said.

She nodded. “I usually visit when I go into town. Which is a lot, actually. I shop there, and I go with Aunt Lisbet on jobs sometimes. More often, these days. Sometimes it’s late at night and I don’t want to wake him.”

Vanja yawned, as if ‘late at night’ had reminded them to be tired. “I’m glad that you seem to be an early riser,” they said suddenly. “It’s kind of nice, staying up late to see you.”

Peggy blushed.

When they’d finished up weeding, Vanja once again left, citing tiredness, and she felt again that it was a shame to see them go.

“I may be up a bit earlier tomorrow,” she called after them, impulsively. “To take a walk before dawn.” Vanja looked back at her and smiled.

She went inside to take a look at the bird that they had brought her; it turned out to be a woodcock, perfect for roasting, already trussed with its head stuck between its legs, and, she noticed as she examined it, also completely drained of blood. It was still a mild surprise to know how werewolves fed; she’d thought that vampires were the bloodsuckers.

She went to bed early. The next morning, she was indeed up before sunrise, and stepped outside to find Vanja waiting near the garden. They claimed that their leg was already doing better enough that a walk would do them no harm, and this time, they spent their time mostly in comfortable silence.

They came to a stream, and Peggy pulled up her skirts and skipped over it, grinning as Vanja just waded through completely carelessly. “Not at all careful with those trousers, are you?” she teased.

“Not like you are with your skirts. Why those, today? If you don’t mind my asking.”

“When I’m going to be down in the dirt, I wear trousers. And some other times, too,” she admitted. “They are comfortable and convenient. But I like skirts.”

“I like both, too, but I know what you mean. Trousers don’t get caught in things as easily, and that’s pretty important in the woods,” they said.

A thought occurred to Peggy. “Do you live here? In the woods, I mean… I saw you coming out of them yesterday.”

“I do.”

“Then… if you don’t mind _my_ asking, why take any livestock at all? Why risk it?”

Vanja shrugged. “If I hunt, I have to do something with the meat, and I can only eat so much,” they explained. “When I’m settled in a place, I can just sell it. But I was only passing through at first. I thought I’d move on before it got cold…”

Peggy frowned and looked away, displeased with the way her heart sank in disappointment. Vanja noticed and drifted closer as they walked, snagging hold of her hand and lacing their fingers, with their strangely curved nails, through hers.

“I’ve been thinking I might want to stay, recently,” they said softly.

Peggy stopped walking. She turned to them, and they leaned close, warm breath against her lips.

Vanja was careful when they kissed her, but she didn’t much mind their teeth, and it didn’t take long before they broke away with a low growl that shot straight through her to throb between her legs. She kissed their neck, and their other hand cupped her breast as they led her carefully to a tree, and they dropped to their knees in front of her as she leaned back against it.

“Oh,” she said. “Yes,” and helped Vanja pull her skirts up, and they burrowed up underneath them with eagerness. She didn’t let go of their hand as they got to work, as they near devoured her, squeezing it tightly as she tried to spread her legs for them as much as possible. Fingers of one hand twined with their fingers, and fingers of the other hand eventually came up to cover her own mouth, to muffle her louder and louder cries. The bark of the tree scratched at her back through the back of her blouse, and she didn’t even care. She just looked down at her skirts draped on Vanja’s shoulders and across their back, as their lips and tongue and the little grunts and moans they made against her undid her completely.

Her knees almost buckled, but she held herself up until Vanja had emerged from underneath her clothing, then sank down slowly to sit against the tree’s roots, still ignoring the scratching at her back. They licked their lips, and her breath caught again; she reached out to wind her fingers through their wild hair, made even wilder by their time spent under her skirts, and pull them into the crook of her neck. They licked there, too, and she laughed breathlessly.

“Come to the cottage with me. I want to do so many things to you.”

She felt them shiver, and they shifted on their knees in a way that told her they were feeling that ache between their own legs, too. “That might be better than the woods,” they admitted. “But I couldn’t wait. The way you kiss me…”

She tugged on their hair, lightly, to urge them to lift their head from her shoulder, and kissed them again.

They stumbled their way back to the cottage, mostly in a daze, though Peggy noticed that Vanja was limping slightly again and scolded them a bit for straining it. “It was worth it,” they proclaimed, almost devoutly, and she tried to stop and kiss them again, laughing when they protested. “If you keep doing that, we won’t make it to the cottage!”

“The more you say things like that, the more you tempt me,” Peggy teased. “But a bed will be much more comfortable.”

She locked the front door, hung the key on the hook, and led Vanja to her bed, pleased with managing that without giving into the urge to just drop everything and embrace them. Their lovemaking was urgent, Peggy grinding down onto them until they flipped them both over, then tugging sharply at their hair to make them shudder and moan. Vanja got off quickly, and apparently very hard, already on edge from the forest, and Peggy wound up in their lap, holding their head to her breast as they sucked and nipped and tugged at her nipple, fingers stroking firm little circles around her clit.

“Please,” she begged, voice shaking. “Please.”

Vanja’s mouth came away from her nipple with another hard suck. “Anything,” they whispered, and kissed her, fingers pressing against her even more firmly, and Peggy kissed them and bucked her hips until she saw stars.

Afterward, they lay twined together, heavy breaths calming to sated ones, deep and contented.

“If you’re tired,” Peggy said softly, “you can stay.”

Vanja hesitated, though not long enough that Peggy had time for disappointment or even much uncertainty. “I’d love to,” they said. “But the way I sleep… It might seem… alarming.”

“How so?”

“I sleep like the dead. Almost literally. I could be mistaken for dead, if someone doesn’t look closely. My heartbeat slows down, my breathing slows… It’s a defense mechanism, I think.”

That did sound a little alarming, and Peggy’s brows drew together for a moment, but then she smiled. “It might have frightened me if you hadn’t said anything,” she admitted. “But since you’ve warned me, I’ll be all right.”

Admittedly, it helped that she had to get up and do things during the day; it would give her some time to get used to it. But she stayed there, tangled up with Vanja, until they’d fallen asleep, and she had almost drifted off herself in all honesty. She watched Vanja sleep for a minute or two, noticing the very faint, slow rise and fall of their chest; it was indeed subtle enough that she might not have seen it if she hadn’t been looking. She didn’t want to risk waking Vanja, so didn’t check for a heartbeat or pulse, deciding to just take their word for it.

The day was spent busily, though she took the time to sit and read, with a cup of tea and a light lunch. It was nice to get to relax, and somehow even nicer just knowing that Vanja was in the bedroom, feeling their presence in the house.

Halfway through making dinner, there came the sound of a key in the door, and then Aunt Lisbet was home, scraping her boots clean on the mat, and Peggy realized that she’d almost forgotten completely what day it was.

“Oh—you’re home!” She half-turned away from the stove, more than a little embarrassed. “How was your trip?”

“Productive,” Aunt Lisbet said, satisfied. She had several bags, as well as her usual basket, and Peggy checked the food and, satisfied that it wouldn’t burn if she stepped away a few moments, hurried over to help her get them set down. “Thank you, dear.”

“I wasn’t quite expecting you,” Peggy admitted. “But there should be enough dinner. We… have a guest, actually, Aunt Lisbet. I hope you don’t mind.”

“A friend of yours?” Aunt Lisbet asked, and Peggy blushed scarlet.

“A friend, yes.” She stammered slightly, and Aunt Lisbet glanced over towards her bedroom. “They’re actually—”

“Ah,” Aunt Lisbet said. “A werewolf.”

Peggy opened her mouth. She didn’t ask _how?_ but it was a near thing; she caught herself just in time and looked over to the door of her room herself, and saw Vanja standing there in the doorway, looking a mix between surprised and sheepish.

“You must be Aunt Lisbet,” they recovered, stepping out of the doorway and into the room proper. “I’ve heard about you—in general, and from Peggy. She’s been… very hospitable, you have a lovely home. It’s nice to meet you.”

To Peggy’s relief, Aunt Lisbet returned the sentiment graciously, and said that she hoped Vanja would stay for dinner. Peggy went back to the stove—hurrying back, but everything seemed to be fine, still—and Vanja helped Aunt Lisbet unpack the bags and put away what she’d picked up from the market, carefully following instructions on what went where.

During dinner, Vanja said, in apologetic tones, “I’m afraid I may have made things awkward for you.” They explained what had happened with Farmer Whittle’s sheep, and how his son had come here suspicious, but, to Peggy’s surprise, Aunt Lisbet just smiled.

“This would not be the first time people have called me a werewolf,” she said lightly, and Peggy’s surprise turned to astonishment. She noticed, and explained, “In Scandinavia, werewolves were old women, like me. We would put poisons on our claws, and use our gazes to paralyze cattle, and children, and take them away… Or, so they would say. Witches and werewolves were one in the same to them.”

Vanja looked fascinated, watching Aunt Lisbet as she talked; Peggy thought that if they had a tail—in either of their forms!—they might have wagged it. “I’d heard a little of such things, but I had no idea. Back in Serbia, werewolves and vampires were brethren… Corpses who rose because of our sin, to drink the blood of the living. So they would say.” They smiled, strangely fond. “They called us both _vulkodlak.”_

“I was surprised when you told me you drank blood,” Peggy admitted. She was surprised now, too. To think that, in some places, people would actually call Aunt Lisbet a werewolf! “Are we really all so similar?”

“Many things are similar,” Aunt Lisbet said, spearing one of the small grape tomatoes with her fork. “Enough to be getting along with.”

Peggy glanced over at Vanja again, smiled when they caught her glance, and ducked her head to concentrate on her plate.

After dinner, and a little small talk—Vanja and Aunt Lisbet really seemed to enjoy chatting, Vanja especially—Peggy walked Vanja to the door, and slipped outside with them for a moment’s privacy, though Aunt Lisbet had busied herself with other things in another room. The night air was cool, and Peggy remembered Vanja saying they had thought to move on before it got cold. She remembered Vanja saying they were thinking about staying.

“I hope I’ll see you again,” she said.

They smiled, reaching up to touch her cheek. “You will. Wild dogs couldn’t keep me away. And I’ve known plenty.”

Peggy laughed. This time, when they kissed her, it was almost chaste, but something in it made her eyes drift closed, and she only opened them again when they pulled away, and raised her hand in a weak wave to say goodbye as they walked back towards the woods.

When Peggy went back inside, Aunt Lisbet was coming out of the larder with a bit of bread and dried venison. “Other than Farmer Whittle’s boy,” she said, “things went well while I was away?” It was almost as much an observation as a question, and she opened the basket on the table. Her familiar spirit, Janne, sniffed his little rat nose out eagerly.

“They did.” Peggy smiled at the sight of Janne nibbling at the venison, reminded of her own wild assumptions only days before. “You know,” she said, “when I first saw Vanja, they were a wolf. I thought they might be my own familiar spirit, coming to meet me.”

“And were you disappointed?”

Peggy thought of her near panic at the thought of her familiar spirit arriving when Aunt Lisbet wasn’t there to guide her. She thought of how her alarm had made her snappish and badly disposed to Vanja at first. She thought of Vanja’s eyes, their wild gray-streaked hair, their smile, the way their lips tasted and their fingers and arms and legs twined with hers.

“Never,” she said.

**Author's Note:**

> I was looking into witches and werewolves for this prompt, and I ended up fascinated by the ways in which witches and werewolves were seen as very similar, in league, or the same, in some parts of the world, and how in others werewolves so greatly resembled vampires that they were also considered of a kind. I wanted to play around a little with that, so here we have Peggy, apprentice to a witch who would have been called a werewolf in another country, and Vanja, a werewolf who drinks blood and "becomes a corpse" when sleeping. I hope you like them!
> 
> Happy Valentine's Day!


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